HE SLASHED HIS WIFE

NZ Truth, Issue 1255, 19 December 1929, Page 5

HE SLASHED HIS WIFE

♦■ SERIOUS RAZOR CHARGE REDUCED (From "N.Z. Truth's" Dunedin Rep.) Looking pale, frightened, and the picture of misery, Henry John Dent, a frail old man, stood m the dock m the Dunedin Police Court the other day to answer a charge of having slashed, his wife with a . razor. AFTER brief details were explained ■by Chief-detective Cameron, the S.M., Mr. H. W. Bundle, permitted it to be reduced from one of assault with intent ft) do bodily harm, to one of common assault, on -which procedure Dent's counsel, Mr. C. J. It. White, entered a plea of guilty. According- to the chief-detective, Dent, after leaving- work one Saturday afternoon, arrived home with some liquor. Both he and his wife imbibed after which accused went out to replenish the supply. On returning:, he found his wife m bed m a state which was not sotier. ' An altercation between the two led to Dent reaching to a .drawer for a razor and slashing his wife across the breast. The woman, Mary Florence Dent, was taken, to hospital, where it was seen' that her injuries were not serious; For the aged accused, Mr. "White described the affair as a "rather tragic, result to a simple domestic row." The old man, he said, had been working for the same firm for a period of over 28 years. • Dent was convicted and ordered to come up for sentence if called upon within 12 months, conditional to his taking out a prohibition order. -